[Bonus chapter]Bloodliners and their Inheritance
Zhen Liu’s notes on the Mortal Races: Bloodliners.
Of the three mortal races, Bloodliners are interesting in the sense that while technically being one big group, they’re actually several thousand different groups composing it.
The best way to explain this would be with the following statement:
Reptiles and mammals are both animals, but are not related.
Canine and felines are both mammals, but are not related.
Tigers and lions are both felines, but are still not related.
Now take that logic and apply to a bunch of magically enhanced super beasts that decided to intermingle with humans and you get a punnett…. dodecahedron.
That being said, all bloodliners share three things in common:
1. Ancestry to a Progenitor ala Genghis Khan.
2. Furriness…Ferality…Hybridization…the Anthro Scale!
3. Inheritances.
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I ain’t explaining that first commonality.
Just…look up how many people are descendants of Genghis Khan.
Now apply that logic multiple times and with magical animals as opposed to a warlord king.
Lay the dragon, not slay the dragon as it were.
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The second commonality is a bit…hard to explain…okay!
Whenever a bloodliner is born they will inherit, aside from one other thing, some level of bestial traits from their ancestors.
This is kind of a giant spectrum of animal trait inheritance but I have marked the places where it becomes noticably leaning one way or another as: Kemonomimi, Hybrids and Beastfolk.
You’re probably wondering why I’m not calling all bloodliners, “beastfolk”, it’s because of this fucking scale.
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For starters, “Kemonomimis” are basically bloodliners that lean towards more their human side than their beast side.
As such, kemonomimi bloodliners look mostly human but with some animal traits mixed in for flavor.
Wonky looking eyes, animal ears, tails, claws, sometimes wings, either way, they just look human with a little extra.
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Hybrids are where things get a bit more extreme on the bestial to humanity scale, very much a fifty-fifty ratio mix.
This is where you get people with their facial features looking like a mix of the animal traits and the human traits.
Better way to put this would be…the wolfman from a black and white movie.
This is also the part where you get like a hoofed feet and straight up scale skin.
Anything pass this point is straight up centaurs, minotaurs, mermaids and harpies.
People got animal parts but still have distinctly human features.
Evidently, a certain sheep girl I know fall under this category…
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Beastfolk.
Furries.
Actual furries are here.
No human skin, everybody at this level either got fur, scales, feathers or whatever whales got.
Claws, fangs, whole shebang.
For full context on how to imagine this…there is an orange juice that have rather…infamous commercials.
Actually, retroactively adding to this, there is another energy drink supplement that had a series of commercials that can apply to the hybrid section.
Just…look this up on your own, I ain’t taking responsibility for this.
Maybe In anOther life time.
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Inheritance power, aka, rule breaking bullshit.
On planet Earth, certain species of animals are born with…let’s say cheat-like biology.
Mantis Shrimps are able to see in a huge spectrum of light while also able to punch with the force of a pistol.
There are several species of flying snake, that do so by flattening themselves like paper and yeeting themselves off of trees.
There are some species of insects that have either shells stronger than iron, muscles denser than that guy/girl you have a crush but never seem to notice your affection, or have the ability to release explosive chemicals.
Now, this same thing can be applied to Aether Beasts, and their bloodliner offsprings, but replace the above with actual magical abilities.
Literal lucky feet from the Golden Rabbit King, punches faster than sound from the Mantis Shrimp Champion, and all slew of dragon abilities from the dragons.
Either way, while the strength of this inheritance can vary from person to person, it doesn’t change the fact that bloodliners can sometimes be born with a special ability that make their cultivation a lot fucking easier…sometimes.
Otherwise, it’s just…fucking weird.
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That should be everything in regards to bloodliners…oh, one more thing.
Bloodliner fertility is…weird.
Bloodliners are able to produce viable offspring with each other, resulting in either hybrids or the child inheriting more from one side than the other, regardless of their progenitors, unless the progenitors had beef with each other.
I am dead serious on this.
A rabbit bloodliner can have babies with a lion bloodliner and produce a bunch of rabbit-lion bloodliners, but if their ancestors happened to be the Crescent Moon Reaper and the Sun Mane King, then that shit is going to be a stillborn on the day of conception.
I have no idea why this occurs, but I was told it had to do with something about “hate being so baked into the spirit it infects the blood”.
I don’t get it either.
On that note, humans are a weird exception to this rule.
All bloodliners and humans coupling always end with viable offspring that can inherit the special quirks of both.
